Word: paramount
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Tanen, president of the motionpicture group at Paramount, calls John Hughes "the Steven Spielberg of youth comedy." Fair enough: Hollywood has always been a town that rewards arrested adolescence and those who can profitably memorialize it. If E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark seem made for children of all ages, from four to 14, then Sixteen Candles provides their older brothers and sisters with answers to the question: Is there life after junior high? Hughes' first film as writer-director is, sure, a sentimental fantasy with just enough wild-party footage to keep the Porky's crowd from nodding...
...arrived an hour later, they found Taylor's Los Angeles bungalow swarming with reporters and souvenir hunters. The press made much of reports that Mabel Normand, the heroine of Mack Sennett's Keystone Kops comedies, was seen rummaging through desk drawers in search of her old love letters. A Paramount executive was sitting in front of the fireplace burning papers. A man claiming to be a doctor examined the corpse and announced that Taylor had died of a stomach hemorrhage. Only an hour later did an official turn the body over to find that he had been shot...
...diamond ring and a platinum watch, but there were many other motives besides robbery. The police discovered a closet filled with women's lingerie, monogrammed or labeled with the names of Taylor's conquests. One pink silk nightgown bore the letters M.M.M., for Mary Miles Minter, then 19 and Paramount's reigning blond. There were also stories of pornographic photos showing Taylor flagrante delicto with other stars...
Vidor interviewed all the survivors and gained access to secret police files. One of his most surprising discoveries concerned the "evidence" found in Taylor's bungalow: it had been planted there by Paramount. The studio wanted Taylor portrayed as a Casanova to disguise his homosexual private life. Even more surprising was the fact that the police had barely investigated several obvious leads. Working alone, Vidor traced the crime to its source. But he never made the movie, and never made any use of his more than 650 pages of notes and records...
WHICH IS why our disbelief does manage to be suspended. All the characters in the script are caricatures and all the players in the play are characters. In a production like Gargantua, it's of paramount importance that the actors seem like they're having a good time so that the audience can't helped being sucked into the fun. For this feat, the entire company deserves lavish praise...